Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Boston Brunchers at KO Catering and Pies in South Boston

By: Finance Foodie

When I was growing up in the pseudo-Pleasantville suburbs, the extent of my exposure to Australian cuisine was the local Outback Steakhouse. Looking back now, after my years of culinary adventure, I realize oh how naive I was, as Outback's nosh was far from authentic "down under". Luckily, I had a chance to remedy this vast 18 year oversight with breakfast (or as they say, "brekky") with the Boston Brunchers at KO Catering and Pies.

KO Catering and Pies is a cute little Australian meat pie and sausage roll shop in South Boston owned by Kara and Sam, two Aussie to Boston transplants. Since the restaurant only holds one communal table for 8 (it's more of a take-away type place), only 8 lucky Boston Brunchers members got to attend. Looks like I totally hit the jackpot on this one! When we arrived, the communal table was set up for us with this lovely place setting. When I saw the Tim Tam, I immediately knew this was going to be a good brekky.

The apéritif of the morning was a toast topped with Vegemite. To be honest, I was a tad nervous trying the Vegemite (a dark brown Australian food paste made from yeast extract) as I had heard from many that it was an "acquired" taste. To my surprise, it wasn't as bad as expected -- it kind of reminded me of thickened soy sauce, although it was really salty. The toast was uber good though - crispy and buttery, with just the right crunch-in-mouth.

For my main entrée, I had the sweet corn fritters and bacon served with an avocado and arugula salad. Unfortunately, I was too trigger-happy with my lime slice -- and over did the lime juice on my arugula and avocado salad, rendering too tart to be eaten. No worries, as Mr. Bacon saved the day! The bacon slab was cut to a perfect thickness and griddle-friend to a perfect consistency (crispy without being burnt).

I also had a bowl of fresh cut fruit (well I gotta balance out all the fried buttery goodness with something healthy)!

Sitting next to me was Katie from Small Boston Kitchen, who had the very yummy looking Croque Madame (smoked ham, provolone cheese and fried egg toasted sandwich on sourdough).

As a special after-brekky treat, Kara brought out sausage rolls for us to try. As a background, sausage rolls are super popular in Australia and are lunch staples in Australia like sandwiches are in America. MMMM -- after tasting these babies, I totally need to move to Australia pronto! The flaky pastry crust combined with the seasoned ground meat filling melted like butter in my mouth.

As our group waddled out of the hearty breakfast, we all agreed that after a meal like that, we were all due for a nice long nap. Thanks again to KO Catering and Pies for inviting the Boston Brunchers!